Leonardo was born in the small town of Vinci, Italy which lies on the Arno River on April 15th 1452. His father, Piero da Vinci was a local notary and his mother Caterina was a peasant. Da Vinci's parents never married, and separated shortly after Leonardo's birth. After his parents separated Leonardo stayed with his father. His father married a young woman named Albiera, and his mother also married. Between them Leonardo was given 17 half brothers and sisters.

At the age of 14 Leonardo began his apprenticeship to Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio was a renown goldsmith, painter and sculptor who worked in the court of Lorenzo de' Medici. During his apprenticeship Leonardo was exposed to many different skills and crafts. He was able to learn metallurgy, mechanics, carpentry, drafting in addition to the more traditional artist's skills of sculpting, modelling and painting.

After working as an apprentice for six years Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St. Luke. The guild represented not only artists but doctors of medicine. By becoming a master Leonardo was then able to have his own workshop, which his father set up for him.

In 1482 Leonardo entered into the service of the Duke of Milan. Under the Duke, Leonardo's tasks included not only painting and sculpting but engineering, architecture and designing weaponry. During his time in Milan, Leonardo was also working on his anatomical studies. He had so many different interests and projects going on that he very rarely finished anything. He did however keep journals in which he meticulously recorded his studies for numerous inventions and ideas.

In 1499 the French invaded and the Duke fell from power. Leonardo and his entourage left Milan and headed for Venice. In Venice, Leonardo worked to design ways of defending the city from naval attacks.

In 1500 Leonardo returned to Florence. He set up his new workshop in the Monastery of Santissima Annuziata, and Leonardo began hunting for a new patron. He entered into the service of Pope Alexander VI's son, Cesare Borgia. With Casare, Leonardo travelled throughout Italy acing as a military engineer and architect. One of his most famous works from this time was the design of a bridge meant to span the Golden Horn in Constantinople.

After his service with Casare, Leonardo moved back to Milan. With the death of his father in 1504 Leonardo was forced to move back to Florence. He remained there until about 1513 when he entered into the service of the Pope. For the next three years Leonardo lived primarily in the Vatican in Rome. It was here that Leonardo met the King of France, Francois I.

Francois I was very taken with Leonardo's work and convinced Leonardo to move to France. In 1516 Leonardo took up residence in France in a manor house that the King provided for him. During his service to François I Leonardo produced work on the nature of water, did studies on cats and horses and created various new machines. Leonardo died three years later on May 2nd 1519. It is said that the King himself was present at Leonardo's deathbed. Leonardo's funeral included sixty beggars following his casket to his final resting place in the Chapel of Saint Hubert in the Castle of Amboise.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.

Life well spent is long.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

I Who sows virtue reaps honour.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Intellectual passion dries out sensuality.

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery and the perfection of wisdom the occasion of folly.

Patience serves a as protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellect.

• A tank


• A hang glider


• Learned how the moon affected the tides


• Diving suit


• Double hull


• Helicopter


• Calculator


• Had a theory of plate tectonics


• Bobbin winder


• Solar power


• Designed bridges


• Designed canals


• Submarine


• Parachute


• Bicycle

Leonardo was left handed

Leonardo had 17 half brothers and sisters.

Bill Gates paid $30 million for one of Leonardo's scientific journals

His famous Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre in Paris.

Leonardo's Last Supper and The Mona Lisa are the most copied paintings of all time.

Among Leonardo's friends were Machiavelli, Caesar Borgia and Luca Pacioli.

Leonardo was a vegetarian

Leonardo often wrote backwards, and his works can be read in a mirror

Leonardo was given the title of Premier Painter by the King of France, Francis the 1st

French soldiers used one of Leonardo's model sculptures for target practice

Leonardo began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503

Leonardo never married

Leonardo is buried in France

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